News Release - From Canadian Embassy in France
Paris, September 26, 2006 – Nathalie Gettliffe, a Canadian and French citizen being held in a minimum security detention centre in the province of British Columbia, gave birth to her child today.
The delivery took place in accordance with the rules set out by British Columbia’s correctional services. These make provisions for pregnant inmates about to give birth to be transported by ambulance to the nearest general hospital. Upon being discharged from the hospital, mothers and their newborns can be accommodated in detention centres until the legal proceedings against them have been concluded or until they are conditionally released or transferred to another facility.
The Alouette Centre, where Nathalie Gettliffe is being held, is a minimum security detention centre located on several hectares of land approximately 60 km outside Vancouver. Completely renovated in 2004, it has one- and two-person cells without bars on the windows. The cells open onto a common room where inmates can come and go as they please. There are 128 women being held at the Alouette Centre, six or seven of whom are pregnant. A dietician helps to prepare meals, and inmates’ special dietary needs are taken into consideration. There is a nurse at the centre and a doctor assigned to it.
Ms. Gettliffe is represented by Canadian counsel who can see her at any time. She receives visits from her maternal uncle who permanently resides in Vancouver. Finally, the Consul General of France also has unrestricted access to Ms. Gettliffe. Ms. Gettliffe is awaiting her trial on November 20 for child abduction after she failed to comply with legal decisions regarding the custody of her first two children. The children, who had been taken to France illegally, have been returned to their father, Scott Grant, in Canada. As mentioned last Friday in a news release from the French Foreign Affairs and Justice ministries, this was upheld by the French courts, in accordance with the Hague Convention of 1980.
Ms. Gettliffe contends she left Canada to get her children away from the influence of the International Church of Christ, to which the father belongs. However, decisions made and upheld by the Canadian and French courts giving the father custody of the children took into account all considerations brought to their attention.
Despite interruption of mediation begun by MAMIF (the French Justice Ministry’s international family mediation service), Ms. Gettliffe, who was several months pregnant, decided on her own initiative to travel to Canada on April 10, 2006, to defend a thesis at the University of British Columbia. She was arrested on April 11, 2006. The Canadian courts turned down her request to be released on bail.
The general reputation of the Canadian correctional system is good enough for it to have been cited as a model numerous times in recent years, including by a Parliamentary Commission of the French National Assembly which, in 2000, saw Canada’s system as the model they should follow in their country to achieve a more efficient penitentiary system. Following a visit to Canada (including British Columbia) in 2005, a United Nations committee drafted a report on the norms governing detention. The report was favourable towards Canada and in particular stressed that “Canada is a country governed by the rule of law, in which a strong and independent judiciary strives to ensure that trials are fair and exercises a generally vigorous control over the lawfulness of all forms of deprivation of liberty.”
For more information, please contact: Ralph Jansen, Communications and Public Affairs Unit Canadian Embassy Tel.: 01-44-43-22-90
Correctional Service Canada
http://www.csc-scc.gc.ca/
Alouette Correctional Centre for Women
http://www.pssg.gov.bc.ca/corrections/centres/medium/location/alouette.htm
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